[Hiring] Director of Product Design @Workiva Inc.

Role Description

Workiva is looking for a high-impact Director of Product Design to join our team. In this role, you won't just manage a team; you will be the primary architect of a cohesive design strategy for the world’s leading platform for trust, transparency, and accountability. You will lead the design across products, contributing to the shaping of end-to-end user experiences, AI-enabled interactions, and scalable design systems. This role will drive measurable impact through partnering to establish modern operating models that integrate human-centered design in AI-accelerated workflows.

Our customers—CFOs, ESG controllers, and Risk leads—rely on us for mission-critical reporting in an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. You will take our existing collection of individual components and transform them into a unified, intelligent "map" for how design is executed at Workiva, specifically anchoring your work within our Sustainability Management product suite. We need a visionary who can navigate the intricacies of enterprise B2B workflows while aggressively implementing hands-on AI strategies (LLMs, Agents, and Insights) to reduce the manual burden on our users.

What You’ll Do

• Strategic Design Leadership & Architecture
  • Define and socialize the long-term UX strategy that aligns design initiatives with core business objectives, such as user retention, AI-driven automation, conversion, and market differentiation.
  • Transform individual components into a unified, intelligent design “map,” evolving our global Design System to ensure a directional foundation that is scalable across the platform.
  • Integrate and apply qualitative user research and quantitative data into every stage of the product lifecycle.
  • Establish and refine the processes, tools, and workflows that allow the team to scale.
  • Contribute to driving design transformation of how we operate and co-create with AI.
  • Lead the hands-on implementation of agentic AI and predictive insights into the core product.
  • Drive design direction with careful consideration to craft of the interaction design, usability and intelligent automation.
  • Ensure design decisions across multiple product areas are well-coordinated and aligned with the "Single Source of Truth" philosophy that defines the Workiva platform.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Partner closely with executive leadership (Product and Engineering) to ensure foundational design is not just beautiful, but deeply functional and integrated into the software’s engine.
  • Connect design to outcome-based measurement frameworks for UX (SUS, Adoption, SOLSAT etc.).
  • Act as the primary design voice in high-level strategy sessions, synthesizing complex technical and business requirements into clear, actionable recommendations.
  • Shape roadmaps collaboratively and influence prioritization for user experience needs of the product.
• People & Operations Management
  • Scale a world-class design organization by providing coaching and development to UX managers and individual contributors, fostering a culture of continuous learning and high performance.
  • Lead design reviews and critiques to ensure a high bar for craft, usability, and accessibility.
  • Implement processes that optimize design efficiency.
  • Upskill team in AI-enabled design tools, workflows and processes.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in product design, with at least 5 years in a leadership role within a complex, B2B enterprise software environment.
• B.A./B.S. degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Psychology, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Portfolio of work that demonstrates not just high-quality UI but also your ability to solve complex strategic problems and lead teams through successful product launches.
• Proven track record of designing complex, data-heavy enterprise software or professional-grade productivity tools.
• Deep experience architecting complex Information Architecture and navigation systems for platforms with high data density and diverse user roles.
• Hands-on experience implementing Generative AI, LLMs, or Agentic workflows into a live product (not just conceptual fluency).
• Demonstrated approaches to evolving legacy design methods into AI-enabled, engineering-integrated creation models that accelerate user insights and delivery.

Requirements

• Deep experience working with enterprise-level composable design systems at scale.
• Prior experience in a high-growth "scale-up" environment or a major digital transformation within a legacy enterprise.
• Familiarity with the regulatory, financial reporting, or ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) landscape is a nice to have.
• Master’s degree is preferred.

Benefits

• Salary range in the US: $177,000.00 - $290,000.00.
• A discretionary bonus typically paid annually.
• Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire.
• 401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package.

Company Description

Workiva is the platform designed to bring confidence, control, and a competitive edge to the world’s most complex organizations. Our AI-powered platform unifies finance, risk, and sustainability on a single, secure foundation—ensuring data is trusted, traceable, and ready to act on.

At Workiva, you’ll bring technology to market that executives, boards, and regulators depend on. The work you do here helps organizations navigate uncertainty, maintain trust, and make decisions that stand up to scrutiny.